


We Shall All Be Changed

by PositivelyVexed



Category: True Detective
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religious Guilt, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-07 09:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/pseuds/PositivelyVexed
Summary: "You didn't have to check on me, Lt. West. You done more for me than just about anybody. Pulled me out of that hole five years ago."





	We Shall All Be Changed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).

> Thanks to dreamlibra for the beta!

He stirred. Heat and sharp pains buzzed under his skin. He tried to rise, but the waves of dizziness and nausea held him down. It was less painful to drowse, so he did. He wasn’t in the mood for more hurt.

Tom tried to drift back to sleep, but the walls here weren’t worth shit. A knock on the front door thrummed through his head. Fuck if he was going to answer it. He buried his head in the pillow. Everything felt wrong, from his own skin to the too-starched bedspread to the smell of the pillow. Voices drifted through the walls, like someone else had answered the door.

A soft voice, low drawl drifted through the walls. “Hey. We, uh, spoke on the phone earlier. About Tom.”

Fuck, was he hearing things now, or was that—? He tried to pull himself up, but every muscle shifted and scraped up against some newly-discovered hurt. He slumped back onto the bed, his heart pounding, fear forming in his chest. What the hell? Where the hell was he?

From the next room, a voice he didn't know: “Come on in. Was the drive okay?”

“Sure. No traffic. Think I might have to start leaving at midnight every time I come to Little Rock. Where is he?”

“He’s still sleeping. Not ‘cause of the beating, most like, probably 'cause of the drinking.”

“Yeah?” A mild, wry twist on the word. So damn familiar and so damn impossible. “How’d you know that?”

“Just a man who’s lived through my share of both.”

Tom felt like they were both speaking in code, and he couldn’t unravel whatever they were really talking about.

“What’d they do to him?” asked Roland West.

He was sure of that voice now, or he was dreaming. The throbbing blood in his head didn’t feel like a dream, though. Nor the tender, swollen feeling around his left eye, or the roadburn on his palms or the too-stiff bedspread. All that felt too wrong to be anything but real. But he hadn’t seen Roland West in five years, and who the fuck was he talking to?

“Some cuts and scrapes. Black eye. Nothing he needs to be in a hospital over.”

“That why you took him home instead of calling the police?”

“It’s what I would have wanted someone to do for me,” the voice said, courtesy cut through with defensiveness. “Look, the police here—” it lowered itself, like the speaker was leaning in close to Roland “—They’ll jump to a lot of fucked up conclusions about a man who gets his ass kicked in that park, alone at night.”

"Hm," said Roland. "You know anything about the men who did it?”

Christ, it was 1985, he knew that much. He must be dreaming. It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of Roland, not by a long shot. Maybe that was his brain’s gift to him--giving him something fresh to hate himself over, when the usual stability of grief and guilt got stale.

“Young punks. I don’t know their names or anything. But folks know the little shits target the place."

“The park,” Roland said.

“That corner of the park, yeah.”

Woodrow Park. _Woodride Park_, he could hear one of the fellows from the garage call it with a smirking glance over at Tom. Shit. Shit.

He’d been drunk that evening. Been praying for strength from God, to let God’s love fill him up and let that be enough. An exercise in futility, most days, since God never gave him shit to go on, not a word. He remembered he'd been holding a flyer in his hand. That flyer. He’d found it tucked in a book on a shelf of the local library he’d finally gotten up the nerve to browse. Had needed to find some hope, and flipped the first book open and found the flyer, printed from what looked like a hand-turned press.

_There’s hope for you too!_ It proclaimed. _Homosexuality is not the answer!_

Underneath it, in letters laid down uneven on the page:

_Behold, I tell you a mystery! We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be "changed"!_

The changed in quotes like that, like someone was playing a joke without realizing it. The other side was just a lot of reiterations of Leviticus and Romans, shit he’d read with shaking hands before, some stuff about weak fathers and overbearing mothers, which, hell, maybe that shoe fit. He’d kept the damn thing, read it so many times he’d practically memorized it, and prayed. He'd gone looking for answers, and it seemed too much of a coincidence that he'd found this.

So he'd been staying away from the park, trying to feel God's presence. All he felt was the shadows in his home closing in on him, his children imprinted on every one of them. After five beers, he knew he needed to feel something real, or he'd crawl right out of his skin.

So he’d gone. Given in for the first time in three, four months. He’d been trying to look casual, in a hooded jacket, trying to look like a man just passing through the wooded area of the park, walking with his head down and his shoulders hunched forward, like he had somewhere to be. God, what a sorry story. Whispering prayers for purification to God, and then walking straight to the park, where he could at least feel—

_—rough hands grabbing the neck of his collar, pulling him off balance as he landed roughly on the ground on his ass, the toe of a boot knocking all the breath out of him, as he was spun onto his stomach, hands scrabbling against the dirt, so dazed and drunk he couldn’t fight back as hands brushing his ass, slipping into his back pocket— _

_“Don’t get excited—”_

_—his pocket suddenly cold and empty where his wallet had been. _

_“We’re just here for this.” _

_He convulsed again as another boot slammed into his side. Footsteps crackled in the brush away from him, someone let out a whoop. Something snapped in him, sprang back like a too tight coil spring, and he was staggering to his feet, stumbling after them--_

_“Oh dude, he ain’t leaving till he gets what he came for-” one laughed, then Tom lifted his fist and split his knuckles against the kid's teeth. Felt some satisfaction as the boy went down, and just barely managed to keep himself from going down with him. He lurched blindly for the second one, got a hold of him and dug his fingers hard into his shoulders, pushed him back, into a pool of light. Pushed into the buzzing glow of streetlight, Tom got his first good look at either of them. Buzzcut. Lean as a beanpole. Sixteen, seventeen, maybe. Fair-haired. Jesus, he was young, about the same age Will would be, and that awful thought made him falter. Long enough for another hand to close on his shoulder and pulled him backwards, his legs giving out underneath him as a fist connected with his eye. On the ground, head spinning, boots sending shockwaves of pain through his side, he instinctively curled in on himself—_

The memory washed over him. Shit. How many different cautionary tales was his life going to turn into? He felt sick again, and buried his face into the pillow.

“ So no one’s catching these little shits ‘cause they know victims won’t go to the cops?”

“Listen, I don’t know your friend. Maybe I guessed wrong, but I thought he’d appreciate it if I got a friend to come get him, let him decide himself if he wanted to alert the authorities. Your number was all I found on him, so I figured you were close, or something.”

“A bit of a gamble," that wry voice again. "I could have been his preacher. Or his parole officer."

The man paused, like he was thinking that over. “I didn't guess wrong, did I?”

“Nah. I’m just here for my friend.”

Tom heard footsteps outside the room he was in getting louder. He needed to get up, but his head felt like it’d taken an icepick through the back. A door opened, and light from the hallway spilled across him. He closed his eyes tighter, the throb in his head turning into a hammer. A pained sound escaped his lips. He felt, more than heard, footsteps crossing the hardwood to him.

“Hey, Tom. I’m here to take you home.”

This wasn’t a dream. Roland was really here. Really come to get him. Really knew he’d been at Woodrow Park, and really knew what that meant. Shit, shit, shit. He hadn’t followed all of the conversation outside his door, but he understood that much, and it stung. Fresh shame. And deeper than that, an old ache. A bruise he’d almost forgotten about, pressing its fingers into the sorest parts of him.

“Roland?” he whispered, the name fluttering in his throat.

“Yeah. How you feeling?”

He tried to lift his head to ask where he was, but couldn't. He let out a low moan.

“Turn that light off out there,” Roland said. The room got darker, more bearable. A minute later, Tom was able to blink his eyes open through his fingers. He took in cream-colored walls and framed photographs of places he'd never been and a bedspread crawling with vines and tropical flowers. He lowered his eyes.

“Where am I?” he breathed. “And who the fuck’s this?” He nodded in the direction of the shape that hadn’t spoken in Roland’s voice, the one that gave the impression of a tall man with a shaved head who worked out.

“This here is Larry,” He could make out Roland’s shape gesturing at the man, then around the room. “And this here is Larry’s house. He called me up, tells me he found you after you got mugged while cutting through the park. That ring a bell?”

Tom blinked. Roland said it evenly, like it was normal to summon a stranger's friend from three hours away to deal with a mugging. Like that would have happened if anyone else but another queer had found him.

He just nodded, swallowing. “I don’t remember any goddamn Larry—no offense—but-” he tried to remember the words, already fluttering out of reach. “I remember getting jumped while I was walking.”

Caught a glimpse of Roland’s eyes marking him.

"You think you can walk?”

“Yeah.” He was pretty sure he could manage that, at least. His boots were beside the bed, and he got them on mechanically, feeling the room pitch and sway each time he leaned down. His whole body felt off balance, kicked-to-hell and run down like it hadn’t been in years. He let himself follow Roland out of the room, down a cream-colored hall. He had the vague impression of a western jacket and trim jeans in front of him, but he couldn’t raise his eyes higher. Like if he avoided Roland’s gaze he wouldn’t have to acknowledge any of this.

“Thanks for taking him in,” Roland was saying. “And for calling me.”

Tom didn’t say anything. Didn’t want to be grateful for help he’d never asked for. Though when he thought about being left there, out of it, as night fell, he couldn’t imagine that ending well, nights as cold as they were. He had the sudden image of a headline shouting Purcell Children’s Father Found Dead at Local Cruising Spot.

Christ.

He felt Larry lean in to him and say softly, with a trace of embarrassment, “Sorry if I overstepped. I was just thinking it’s what I’d want, I were in your shoes.”

"You don't know me," was about all Tom could manage, torn between gratitude and the urge to fight the man right then and there.

"No, I don't. Sorry."

He followed Roland out. He felt the night air as he followed, dizzy and vision blurry. He felt a warm heavy hand on his shoulder as he stood in the yard of a stranger, beside the lieutenant who’d told him his son was dead.

“It’s good to see you again,” Roland said softly. Kind eyes looking at him, without a trace of condescension or pity. That had meant a lot to Tom at the time, back when everything went to hell, and it went through him now like a revelation. He blinked away from Roland, tried not to notice how well stubble and slicked-back hair suited him. Gazed around the neighborhood. Neat grass lawns leading up to neat little houses. “You didn’t have to come,” he whispered.

Once Tom was seated in the car with his fists balled around his pant legs, Roland got in beside him, glanced over at him. “I told you. If you ever called, I’d come.”

“I didn’t call you,” he said flatly, his throat raw, shame prickling behind his eyes. “Didn’t ask fucking Larry to call you either, make you drive three hours just to see me like this.”

Roland sat with his hands on the wheel, not making a move to put the car in reverse.

“I don't mind.” He said, not meeting his eyes.

“Well maybe I do,” Tom muttered, turning his head away towards the window. As they drove out of the neighborhood, rain started to patter against the windshield. Roland flicked the windshield wipers on. Tom’s head throbbed in time with the wiper blades.

“Real genius, that Larry. Thought he’d save me from the police by calling you. He figure out how fucking funny that was?”

Roland kept his eyes on the road. “Think he maybe suspected. Didn’t seem real comfortable having me in his house.”

“Christ. I wish he’d left me to the Little Rock PD. I don’t give a fuck what they think of me.”

Roland had been staring straight ahead, but now he blinked and looked at Tom. “Hey, man. What do you take me for?”

“I don’t know. What do you take _me_ for, now?”

“It ain’t my business what you are. And we all—shit, we all got our things.”

“Really?” he snapped. “ Being _queer's_ the sort of thing we all got?”

Roland shrugged. “Sometimes, I—” he shook his head. “No. Look, I mean everyone’s got something. I seen a lot worse. A hell of a lot worse." A pause. "C’mon. Tom. I’ve already forgotten it.”

Tom swallowed, wiped away the tears that’d been forming in his eyes. “Turn left. I’m about three miles down this road.”

The vacant, mechanical sound of the blinker filled the car. Roland shifted beside him and the houses rolled by. “Little Rock, huh? I never figured you for a city man.”

“Still ain’t used to it.” He leaned his forehead against the window, rolled it back and forth, trying to still the pounding in his head with the cool condensation on the window. “Think I hate it. But it ain’t _there_.”

Roland looked gravely at the road in front of him. “Sometimes that’s all a place needs.”

Tom could see Roland studying him out of the corner of his eye, cataloging time’s changes: mustache gone, hair slicked back, more lines around his eyes. Busted capillaries in his nose. Still gaunt-faced, still thin, still bearing all the hallmarks of having just got the shit kicked out of him. He even caught Roland glancing at the inside of his forearms beneath his rolled up sleeves, as if checking for needle marks. He wouldn't find any. Tom and Lucy had never even managed to be compatible when it came to how they liked to self-destruct.

“Well, don’t be shy,” he muttered. “You see it now, now that you’re looking for it?”

"I'm just driving you home, man," said Roland.

“What about your partner? What d’you think he'd think of this?”

Roland turned his face, looked at him strangely. “Why? You want to tell him?”

"No sir. Just wondering." He'd been thinking about Lt. Hays because, well, he'd made an ass of himself about Hays then, five years ago, the last time he'd been in Roland's car, and what was his life without repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

“I don’t know,” said Roland flatly. “I ain’t asked his opinion on that particular subject yet.”

“Seems like he’s the traditional sort.”

“Does he?” Roland said, face suddenly cold and hard. “Guess I never thought about it.” He looked away, kept his eyes on the road. “We ain’t partners anymore, anyway. Not since ‘80.”

Tom stared out the window, hating himself more with each house they passed. Shit. Five years on, and nothing had changed at all. He was the same joke, still both set-up and punchline, still lashing out at the one man who seemed to care about him.

He started to cry. "I'm sorry. You'll have to excuse me. Think I must have got my brains kicked out back there. It means a lot to me. You coming out to get me."

“It’s all right.”

His home was at the end of a row of low duplexes, fronted by squares of concrete, fenced by chain link. More front stoops than not were strewn with sun-bleached Fisher-Price cars and Hot Wheels. He stood too fast, getting out of the car, and he had to grab onto the doorframe to keep from falling over. Then Roland was beside him, hands warm and steady on his arm. "Come on."

It was a small place, not tidy, but at least not filthy. Tom felt some relief he’d done the dishes and taken the beer bottles out to the curb yesterday, till he remembered that he had just been picked up shitfaced and ass-kicked from a stranger’s house at three in the morning. It was a little late for good impressions.

“Can I get you something to drink?” he asked.

“I’m good.”

“Right, this ain’t a social call. It’s a scraping my sorry ass off the curb again call. Well, see you—"

He tried to turn away, but he ended up staggering into the counter hard as he tripped over his feet. A minute later, he felt Roland put an arm around him.

He heard himself weeping into Roland’s shoulder. Roland’s hand came down on his back, patting his back. It opened a need in Tom he thought he’d successfully buried. It had been easier, before he knew that Roland would come running when someone called from three hours away. That he would still wrap his arms around him, even knowing what he now knew about Tom.

Tom raised his eyes, blinked at the square on the ceiling. “I didn’t ask for this. Any of this.”

“I know,” murmured Roland.

Roland got himself loose, stepped back, worry on his face. “You want me to look at that cut on your forehead?”

Tom froze, then nodded slowly.

They went to the hall bathroom where the light was better. “Bandages are in the medicine cabinet,” Tom said, putting his hands on the sink and staring into the mirror like he was staring into a stranger’s face. Didn’t look up as Roland went through the medicine cabinet, freeing a box of butterfly Band-Aids from behind a stack of sleeping pills without comment. He turned and faced Tom, and Tom tried not to notice how well stubble suited Roland's face.

Roland was peering up at him. “Think I’m gonna need you to sit down for me,” he said.

Tom felt his mouth quirk into a tired smile. “Thought I remembered you being taller.”

“You don’t have much a memory then.”

Tom sat on the seat of the toilet, turned sideways towards the light. It gave Roland better lighting, and it gave Tom an excuse to shut his eyes, not have to watch as Roland wetted a towel with warm water, leaning in to dabbed at his cuts. Tom let out a choked sob.

There was no denying it. That ache, that had never really gone away, had it? Even if it’d been overwritten with fresher longings and disappointments, even if it would always exist only inside the void that had been left by his boy and girl. It was wrong-headed, stupid as only Tom could be stupid, but there it was, no forgetting it now. For a minute, there was only the dab of warm water and threadbare terrycloth against his skin.

“You working?” Roland asked presently.

“Been at the same garage for three years now.”

“My recommendation is, call in sick tomorrow. I can take you down to the DMV. Get your license back. We can go to the bank, get cards, whatever you need. I got nothing but paperwork scheduled tomorrow anyway, no one’s gonna miss me. And then maybe we can hunt down those fucking punks and beat their asses together.”

Tom swallowed, hating the temptation his words gave him. “Yeah? That recommended police procedure?”

“Damn right it is, in Arkansas.”

Tom lifted his split knuckles to the light. “An even rematch sure sounds pretty good right now.”

Roland smiled, leaned back. “Think I’ll get some ice for that eye,” he said softly. “Unless you got some steak you want to sacrifice for the job.”

“This ain’t much of a steak household.”

When Roland got back with the bag of ice, Tom sat, shivering, feeling the closeness of Roland’s body, and that unexpected tenderness of his fingers brushing against his forehead, smoothing the bandage against his skin. Roland’s fingers skirted through his hair, and his neck tingled before he realized the man was just looking for more cuts and bumps where his head had hit the gravel. He bit his tongue, trying to take his focus off the kindness of the touch, and how his body was responding to it. Though, shit, why not enjoy it? He hadn’t had any intimate touch comparable to this in... ever. Guilt nearly overwhelmed him as soon as he thought it. Roland’s kindness deserved better than that. Lord, give me the strength to give and receive love as it was meant to be, he prayed.

Maybe he didn’t know how to handle kindness, except by twisting it into something impure. He started to cry again. Roland’s hands jerked back a little, then came back, running through his hair. He thought he’d lost the ability to cry in recent years, but it was all coming back now, wounds fresh and raw. Roland didn’t comment, just kept smoothing out Tom’s hair with his hand.

Tom twitched his face, oddly stiff in places from bandages and drying ointment. He still hurt, but the last of his drunkenness had faded, turning into the beginnings of one motherfucker of a hangover.

“What do you say?”

It took Tom a moment to remember what they’d been talking about. “I could use the help, tomorrow,” he said cautiously. “If it ain't too much trouble. You can stay here.”

Prayed to God he wasn't making the wrong call, that he wasn't doing this for selfish reasons. God didn't answer. Roland looked him up and down, then nodded. "Sounds good.”

Tom slept in his bed, and Roland on the couch. Tom tried hard not to think about it being any other way, but didn’t quite manage.

* * *

The next day, they went to the DMV. Stood in line together surrounded by all the other sad-sacks, like they did this all the time. No success on the finding-the-punks front, not that they’d really looked, with Tom beat all to hell and barely able to walk without limping. And then in the end, Roland was standing in his garage in the late afternoon, driver’s side door braced open between them.

“Look, I’m the wrong guy to say this to anyone, but I want to get you help. Look, there’s an AA meeting, meets right in your neighborhood.”

Tom felt his walls coming right up. “You think I don’t know that?”

Roland looked down. “I’m sure you do. But if you need a friend, support, someone to go with. I’ll do what I can.” There was muscle in his jaw twitching and jumping like he couldn’t decide if he should say this. “And I don’t care what you do, but that park is bad news. Shit, you know better than I do now’s not the time to be doing anything that risky—”

“Christ, I know. I don’t take risks with that shit.” He felt trapped in the humidity and stagnation of the garage. “And I thought you already forgot it?” he hissed.

Roland leaned heavily against the car door, looking at him long. “Jesus, I don’t want to lecture you. But I also don’t want you dead. You think your kids would want that?”

That landed hard, hard as any blow.

Roland sighed. “Look, I ain’t fit to lecture anyone on this,” he said, vaguely. “But if you need support, you can call me, man. For real.”

He couldn’t make promises, but in that moment, he wanted to. Wanted to be a man Roland could be proud of, be worthy of all the kindness.

“Shit,” he said. “I can’t promise anything, but maybe.”

When Roland pulled out of the garage, there was a phone number in the breast pocket of his jacket, written on a torn off piece of lined notebook paper.

“Any time you’re worried about me, you can call,” Tom had said, scribbling it out, like he was doing Roland a favor, like his heart wasn’t hammering out of his chest.

* * *

But Roland must have had more faith in Tom than Tom did, because it was Tom who called first, a week later from a payphone in the parking lot of a dive bar. He’d been staring between the phone booth and the bar, wondering which was going to fuck him up more in the end. He kind of suspected it was the payphone. Maybe that’s why he walked towards it in the end. Fresh torment, better than old torment.

His fingers were slick and clumsy as he raised his dime up to the slot. Punched in the numbers without looking at that card in his pocket. He’d already memorized Roland’s number sometime back around 1981.

Two rings. He realized he was bouncing impatiently on the balls of his feet.

“Hello?” Roland’s voice drawled down the line.

“Hey. You want to talk?”

He could hear the sound of a chair scraping the floor. “Yeah. Good to hear from you, man.”

He went to his first meeting, got a sponsor. Good woman, older. She’d lost a son in the war. That had helped somehow, knowing that. He had dumped all the liquor bottles in his kitchen down the sink. It had been a few days later, when he remembered the bottle of whiskey in his dresser drawer. He pulled it out and stared at for a good long time. Underneath it was a familiar pale purple flyer, a crease down the middle. _There is hope for you!_

He poured the bottle down the bathroom sink, and walked downstairs with the flyer. Sat down with it, then looked at the phone. That night, he slipped the flyer into the trash, and picked up the phone.

Being sober made everything worse at first. Or just more vivid. Memories, dreams. Feelings. In dreams, he lost his kids again and again. Found them, too. Got to wrap them in his arms and hold them. To save them again and again, the answer so damn obvious in his dreams. When he woke up alone, in a city he’d never wanted to live in, he’d lie awake face up on his bed with his hands over his eyes and howl.

Sometimes he’d call Roland.

One night, he told Roland about the dream he’d had. That Julie was alive, and had come home, to West Finger, and had been searching their empty house, their empty street, for him.

“I know what the official reports say, man, but what if she's alive? What if she’s looking for me, and she comes home, and nobody’s there for her?” He stared into the void of the blank television screen across from his bed. “I’m starting to think I should come home. Like, I know it’s just a dream. But it feels like someone’s telling me something.”

God? Was God telling him to move back home? To West Finger?

“It’d be good to be able to see you again,” said Roland.

It would. That was what really worried Tom.

One day, Roland admitted that he’d stopped drinking too. “Started feeling like the world’s biggest hypocrite, lecturing you on the subject.”

“You sound rough enough I believe you. Christ. That ain’t necessary. You ain’t like me.”

“I wanted to, man.” He managed to make it sound halfway sincere. “Guess I’m just ready for a change too.”

Once or twice they’d lain in bed, phones dragged on their cord as far as they’d go, receivers cradled in the crook of their necks. Watching a movie together in silence, the sound of the same program echoing down the receiver. Other times, they’d talk for real. It took him a while to work out that Lt. West was lonely. He must have been, if he was looking to Tom for company.

A few times, Roland drifted off to sleep in the middle of some conversation, phone still pressed up to his cheek, and Tom could just barely hear the scrape of his breath crackling over the line. He didn’t hang up the phone either, just closed his eyes. The next morning he was woken up by the sound of Roland’s voice. “Jesus. I fell asleep. You still there?”

“Mhm,” he muttered. Pushed himself up, pulled the receiver out of the little indent in its cheek, sticking to his skin just enough to be painful. “Guess I fell asleep too.”

“Ain’t we a pair. Shit, I got work. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Later.”

* * *

It was a busy week at the garage, and he came home exhausted. It was almost better than being drunk: too out-of-it to think, without the regret. He didn’t hear from Roland all week. Finally, on Sunday, he called Roland up. The phone was picked up on the ninth ring.

"Yeah?"

He didn’t ask if Roland’d been drinking. That much was obvious. “You alright?”

Low chuckle. Definitely drunk. “Yeah. Never better.” Roland shifted the phone around.

“If it’s a bad time—”

"Finally tracked down those teenage punks. Gave them a good talking-to.”

“What? Who?”

“Those little reprobates from Woodrow Park. You remember them?”

“How? You were here?”

“Was in town for a meeting at the state building. Did some digging on my lunch break. Found out four different reports have been filed over the past year. Finally tracked the reports down. They’ve all been getting sent to Vice. No wonder no one’s been doing shit about it. One of the descriptions got their license plate, for Christ’s sake. I was able to find those kids in an afternoon.”

Tom felt his fingers tightening around the receiver. “What’d you do?”

“Just had a friendly chat. Don’t think they’ll change their ways, they’re too far gone for that, but it may give them some second thoughts about how much they can get away with, preying on that particular community. They gave pretty good too, but I think I was persuasive in the end. The dental bills should convince them if nothing else.”

Tom released a deep breath. He couldn’t help it. He felt some satisfaction. It felt like there was more to the story, though. “It’s been nine months. What brought all this up?”

“A whole mess of things.” A long pause. He could practically hear Roland’s jaw working over the phone. “Purple Hays,” he said, drawled it out slowly. “Lt. Hays, that is. Been trying to get him transferred down to me for, what? Three years? Got blocked again earlier this week. This time they told me it weren’t ever gonna happen. Should just stop trying if I wanted to keep my own job. Guess it got me thinking a lot. About how things were between us. Why I wanted him back.”

“Yeah?” said Tom, barely able to breathe.

“Got me thinking about how things were between you and me too. Shit. It’s like all my relationships…. Got complicated when I wasn’t looking.” Roland let out a long breath of air. “I feel like I was a coward back there. That night I came and got you."

Tom struggled to follow. "What? You coming meant everything to me."

He could hear Roland taking a swig over the phone. "It was cowardly. Letting you think you were alone. Hope you can forgive me.”

Tom stared at the phone. He pressed his thumbnails into fists so tight he drew blood. He swallowed. “I got nothing to forgive you for.” His heart was hammering in his chest.

“Shit, I don’t know what I’m saying,” Roland said, a moment later. “I think those kids must have knocked my brains out. Or the drink did. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

* * *

Tom came home from work two days later to find Roland sitting on his stoop.

“Somehow I always figured I’d be the one showing up on your stoop,” Tom said.

Roland shrugged. “You’re still welcome to, if you want.”

He let Roland in--his key missed the lock a couple times from sheer nervousness. It was wrong for any man to look so good.

They sat down in the kitchen, drinking coffee. “I’m going to make dinner,” he said. “I got this hamburger I gotta use tonight. Hope you don't mind Hamburger Helper.”

“Never had it before. I’d be grateful for the experience.”

Roland sat silent with his coffee for a minute, watching him move about the kitchen. “You look good, Tom. You look real good.”

Tom looked up, continued moving around the room, getting the skillet from out under the stove.

“You too,” he said softly. “Black eye and all.”

Roland snorted.

He cooked in silence, and he felt Roland’s eyes on him the whole time. No static between them.

It wasn’t until they sat down to eat that Roland spoke up again. “I heard Pat’s Garage on 4th in Fayetteville needs a new mechanic. They been looking for a while now.”

Tom felt the air leave his lungs, the weight of things unsaid bearing down on him like they were going to crush him. “I don’t know man. I can guarantee they won’t pay as well as they do in Little Rock.”

“With cost of living, you got to figure things will even out. They can’t even give houses away in West Finger since the chicken plant shut down.”

Tom looked down at the cup of coffee. Thought about the plant, the life he used to have.

“You said once you were thinking about coming back. You still thinking about it, I could put in a word with you down at the garage. They maintain the police cruisers there, so I see those fellows often enough.”

Roland scraped his chair on the floor, faced him.

“And there’s another thing. I heard they were changing the area codes. I don’t got money for long distance phone calls. The phone bills would kill me.”

“I’m supposed to move to save you money on long distance?” Tom said, a sad smile catching on his lips. He shook his head. “Hell, where’m I supposed to go? I don’t got a house anymore. West Finger or otherwise.”

“You could stay with me as long as you need.” He reached out, put his hand over Tom’s. “There’s some trailer parks in the area, good deal, you could save up money towards that.”

“I need to think about it,” he said, turning away and scooping up the dishes.

They did the dishes together. Or rather, Roland insisted on doing them, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his forearms covered in suds. They stood close together. Roland handing off stuff to dry. Tom had tried praying earlier. Not for deliverance or strength, this time, but for acceptance. It was when Roland was handing over the cutting board that their touch lingered a bit long, and then Roland didn’t hand the cutting board over. He set down back in the sink, and put his hand on Tom’s wrist.

“Shit,” Tom whispered. “You sure you want to—”

Roland kissed him. It was short, tentative. A quick test, maybe, but it didn’t feel like it. He melted into the touch. He shivered.

“Was that....”

“Just something I been wanting to do.”

He thought, reluctantly, of Roland’s drunken confession on the phone, the way he’d talked about his old partner. He forced himself to pull back enough to speak. “Something you been wanting do with me? Or him?”

His hand was around his wrist, thumb rubbing circles against his pulse. It made Tom go just about legless with want. “Think it’s been you for a while, now.”

Tom pulled in towards him desperate, hungry. The rest of the dishes stayed in the sink, the water got cold. At some point they moved over to the couch—feeling out their bodies pressed together, the feel of Roland’s firm stomach beneath his hands, his warm calloused hands cradling his neck. He wanted more, much more, but for the moment, he was shaking so bad he had to stop. Had to bury his face in his hands before he was overwhelmed by the pictures of the future flashing before his eyes. Coming back to West Finger. Coming back to those roads, and those hills. To Roland. He buried his face in Roland’s jacket, breathing him in, the smell of the open road. It felt like coming home.


End file.
